The Five Cycles of Judgment - Generation Word



The Five Cycles of Judgment

(The Five Cycles of Discipline)

In the spring of 1983 my wife, Toni, and I finished college and we moved to a small town in Iowa to take a job as the head coach of my first varsity baseball team. It was very important to me and I had been studying the game and coaching at a various levels since 1977. We ended up being the conference champs that year and it was a big deal to me and the community. It was my first conference championship at the age of 23 and I knew I was on track for what I wanted to be decades of coaching that would include many more championships. No sooner had I started than something big began to change in my life. Toni and I have talked many times about the “what if” of the next 24 months of our lives. Even now on long road trips or at a restaurant late at night the two of us will speculate about how different life might have been if we had stayed the course of that original dream to coach high school baseball and basketball through our 20’s, 30’s, 40’s and into retirement. Believe me, we have often wished we hadn’t decided to switch directions. How different life would have been if we had simply kept going. But, we didn’t.

It all began on a Sunday morning in June when we went to one of the local churches. The pastor spent the whole hour legalistically telling the families their kids needed to be in his Christian school or else they all would perish. Well, at least, that’s the way we remembered it. We didn’t go back the next week but went across the street from our house to a good denominational church. This pastor spoke softly about the divorce he was going through and read from that month’s Readers Digest. Holy smokes, I remember thinking, I could be spending this time on team statistics, practice plans or studying from the collection of written material on the game of baseball I had horded together over the last few years. But, I knew, as a Christian Toni and I needed to be in church and attentive to the Word of God. We were 0-2 or, as a competitive coach I would say, they were 0-2 and were not going to get another at bat.

I had always been in church on Sunday mornings through out my life but I had seen bits and pieces of what was on the television during the church hours. We could get channels 3, 10 and 13 and sometimes 2 if the weather was stormy. It was very strange and hard to do that first Sunday morning when we didn’t dress up, we didn’t mosey to the car, and we didn’t go to church. We got up turned the TV on for the 9:00 program and watched a preacher for an hour. He was intense. He quoted a lot of scripture and he had an air of authority when he spoke. Toni didn’t like him one bit. I had to watch him again. So next week we did the same thing. Toni left and went back to the kitchen. I was mesmerized. I liked what I saw and I envied his confidence. Toni thought he was arrogant. I agreed, but I loved it. I guess he taught the Bible like I coached.

By the third week the hour sitting in front of our little black and white twelve inch television came and went like time didn’t exist. I sat stunned as the closing song started to play. I was thinking how can I wait until next week to hear him again. Then I noticed sitting on the floor beside my chair was Toni. Starring at the little tv we had bought on our honeymoon two years before at Target for $64. She look up at me and all I could say is, “Toni, we have to do something.” We had no idea what we were talking about or what that “something” was, but she nodded as we continued to sit there. The next year and a half was spent coaching and teaching but the entire time we were consuming Bible teaching cassette tapes, getting up two hours early to read the Bible again for the first time. Everything changed. Everything.

After two years we put our house up for sale, had a garage sale and basically gave everything away that we couldn’t fit into a small u-haul trailer and moved in hopes of getting into Bible school. We were 25 now with two boys under two. We quit our jobs and stepped out on faith, or hope at the best. In the end we realize it was more of a dream or a desire than anything. We left to go to Bible school and change the world. We arrived with no money, no job and not a chance in the world of getting into Bible school. I got a job in a dumpy factory like setting for $4 an hour. That is where seminary class began for me. I still studied but I mostly worked. Coaching became a distant memory as if from another life in another world where I called the plays. That first year we lived below the poverty line. I had never experience hopelessness like we felt here and all because we had pursued a dream. We wanted to quit. We thought about going back, but we couldn’t. We had seen something in our souls. We had a dream that we did not understand but it was burning inside us. We couldn’t quit. So we kept on going. Like the lyrics in Bob Seger’s song “The Fire Inside” outside our lives and dreams where slipping away and being eroded daily by the realities of life, but there was something inside. Seger calls it “The Fire”.

“Then it comes to you how it all slips away

Youth and beauty are gone one day

No matter what you dream or feel or say

It ends in dust and disarray

Like wind on the plains, sand through the glass

Waves rolling in with the tide

Dreams die hard and we watch them erode

But we cannot be denied

The fire inside” *

Looking back it was the Spirit of God and his plan that he had dropped into our souls that was the fire inside that would not let us be denied. We were working, scrounging, studying and God was preparing us for a new direction in life.

I said all that to get to this point. God is good all the time and every time. But, in his goodness some of the things he does seems bad to me. I may have been willing to serve God, but I was not ready. God would discipline me through hardships. These hardships where painful but they where the formation of my character, attitude, and tested the sincerity of my respond to the “dream”.

“Endure hardship as discipline; God is treating you as sons. . . No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it. (Hebrews 12:7, 11)

Hardship is discipline from God who is training us to produce a harvest or righteousness and peace. Notice, this only occurs “for those who have been trained by it.” Each of us can refuse to be trained by God. We can become bitter, resentful, fearful or we can quit. The determining factor in my training or your training is if we are were willing to be formed by God into something He could use. Paul addresses this when he writes to Timothy a man he had trained for the ministry:

“In a large house there are articles not only of gold and silver, but also of wood and clay; some are for noble purposes and some for ignoble. If a man cleanses himself from the latter, he will be an instrument for noble purposes, made holy, useful to the Master and prepared to do any good work.” (2 Timothy 2:20, 21)

Hebrews 12:6 quotes the Israelite’s wisdom book of Proverbs 3:12:

“The Lord disciplines those he loves, and he punishes everyone he accepts as a son.”

This is true for each of us as individuals, but even more so to entire cultures and people groups that form nations. God is not going to let a nation wonder from his ways into sin, darkness and destruction with out intervening. Individual people have free will and so do nations. An individual can respond to God’s discipline or an individual can refuse to learn. So it is with nations. Nations can respond to the LORD’S punishment and receive his discipline. Nations can march on against the LORD’S discipline right into his wrath and judgment.

I know that God loves our nation as he loves all nations. I know our nation is living below the standard of general revelation of justice and the innate standard of right and wrong (Rm. 2:15). Common sense theology would indicate then that the nation of the United States is currently facing God’s discipline. I know this is true because we can see it and I will walk you through it in the next chapter. Is our nation going to have enough sense, enough will power, enough desire for life to respond to God’s discipline? Or, are we too dense because of secularism, too weak in our national soul because of materialism and pleasure and too lost from having a purpose to protect life, let alone fight for it? If we are too dense, too weak and too lost we will march right through God’s discipline and meet his wrath and judgment. So now I present you with the “Five Cycles of Discipline” which can become the “Five Cycles of Judgment”. Discipline and judgment depend on how the son responds to the fathers love.

Leviticus 26:14-33 describes the cycles of discipline or judgment that God promised to take Israel through when they rebelled against him.

“But if you will not listen to me and carry out all these commands, 15 and if you reject my decrees and abhor my laws and fail to carry out all my commands and so violate my covenant, 16 then I will do this to you:

Cycle Number One Comes to the First Generation (first 40 years):

I will bring upon you sudden terror, wasting diseases and fever that will destroy your sight and drain away your life. You will plant seed in vain, because your enemies will eat it. 17 I will set my face against you so that you will be defeated by your enemies; those who hate you will rule over you, and you will flee even when no one is pursuing you.

 18 " 'If after all this you will not listen to me, I will punish you for your sins seven times over.

Cycle Number Two Comes to the Second Generation (years 41-80):

19 I will break down your stubborn pride and make the sky above you like iron and the ground beneath you like bronze. 20 Your strength will be spent in vain, because your soil will not yield its crops, nor will the trees of the land yield their fruit.

21 " 'If you remain hostile toward me and refuse to listen to me, I will multiply your afflictions seven times over, as your sins deserve.

Cycle Number Three Comes to the Third Generation (years 81-120)

22 I will send wild animals against you, and they will rob you of your children, destroy your cattle and make you so few in number that your roads will be deserted.

23 " 'If in spite of these things you do not accept my correction but continue to be hostile toward me, 24 I myself will be hostile toward you and will afflict you for your sins seven times over.

Cycle Number Four Comes to the Fourth Generation (years 121-160)

25 And I will bring the sword upon you to avenge the breaking of the covenant. When you withdraw into your cities, I will send a plague among you, and you will be given into enemy hands. 26 When I cut off your supply of bread, ten women will be able to bake your bread in one oven, and they will dole out the bread by weight. You will eat, but you will not be satisfied.

27 " 'If in spite of this you still do not listen to me but continue to be hostile toward me, 28 then in my anger I will be hostile toward you, and I myself will punish you for your sins seven times over.

Cycle Number Five at the end of the Fourth Generation to Totally Destroy that Society

29 You will eat the flesh of your sons and the flesh of your daughters. 30 I will destroy your high places, cut down your incense altars and pile your dead bodies on the lifeless forms of your idols, and I will abhor you. 31 I will turn your cities into ruins and lay waste your sanctuaries, and I will take no delight in the pleasing aroma of your offerings. 32 I will lay waste the land, so that your enemies who live there will be appalled. 33 I will scatter you among the nations and will draw out my sword and pursue you. Your land will be laid waste, and your cities will lie in ruins.”

This is fairly self explanatory. As nations move into the first generation of rebellion toward God he will send, for example, a plague. This would force man to consider his humble condition and his ultimate end. Many people would cry out to God or at least try to treat others with justice. Others of course would become hopeless, curse God and live selfishly in self-pity. To live peacefully on God’s green earth they should follow his basic standards.

Many nations repent or change their ways and recover. If they continue in their sin into the second generation, not only does there sin develop like a weed from a seed, God steps up his warnings and judgment. Why? Because, he loves man. If man were allowed to live as he pleased he would produce a world of sin and death. It is not that God doesn’t want man to do whatever he wants, because he does want man to do whatever he wants. Remember in the garden he told man “You are free to eat from any tree in the garden.” But, then he warned him of the tree that would kill him. God wants you do to whatever you desire that is why he gave you free will. But, at the same time, just as there is life there is death. As surely as there is right there is wrong. You can chose death and wrong if you want, but God in is love will try to stop you every way he can short of removing you volition which allows you to choose.

The second generation is met with famine for example. This should cause them to realize how weak they are even in something as simple as gathering food. They have 40 years to move through the second cycle and consider their ways.

The third generation would face an increase in crime that God says will rob them of children and possessions and create deserted streets. Anarchy is setting in to the society. It is as if God is punishing the corrupt culture with culture’s own corruption.

The fourth generation would be greeted with a form of a military attack on their land giving them a taste of what is coming if their disobedience continues until the end of this generation. This generation sees mounting discipline as they draw closer and closer to the end of God’s patience and move from his loving discipline to his anger of judgment.

At the end of the fourth generation God removes the disobedient nation from his plan. After 160 years of loving discipline this nation has chosen to receive the wrath of God and be judged for their national sins. God cleanses the earth of them just like in the days of Noah, but in this case, he need only remove one nation and can spare the rest of the world. Just as this people’s rebellion was to live in an unnatural state of immorality and corrupt ethics so their punishment will be unnatural for the normal human condition. Portrayals of the fifth cycle of judgment are some of the most hideous descriptions in the history of man kind. You can read the scripture above or see the details from scripture in the list below. I will leave the fifth cycle at this for now, but in a few chapters we will be forced to look at some historical examples that are beyond belief if it were not for the fact that God says in Leviticus this is what he will do and historians have recorded the events when they occurred. Consider this a warning. Consider this an appeal to the United States from the love of God. Do not go any further. “You are free to eat from any tree, . . but you must not” go here. Please America, do not go any further against the love and discipline of the LORD. All he asks is that you do what is right and just as individuals and as a society. He has written this in your hearts. Find it now before it is too late.

|Cycle of Judgment |Generation it Strikes |Characteristics Described in |

| | |Leviticus 26 |

| | |Sudden terror |

|1 |First Generation |Wasting diseases |

| | |Fever destroys sight |

|Leviticus 26:16-17 |1-40 years |Drain away life |

| | |Plant seed in vain |

| | |Enemies eat produce |

| | |Defeated by enemies |

| | |Ruled by those who hate you |

| | |Flee when no one pursues you. |

| | |Break down stubborn pride |

|2 |Second Generation |Sky like iron (no rain) |

| | |Ground like bronze (famine) |

|Leviticus 26:19-20 |41-80 years |Strength spent in vain |

| | |No crops from soil |

| | |No fruit from trees |

| |Third Generation |Send wild animals (crime) |

|3 | |Robbed of children |

| |81-120 years |Destroy cattle |

|Leviticus 26:22 | |Reduce population |

| | |Deserted roads |

| | |Sword upon you (war comes to your land) |

| |Fourth Generation |Seek shelter from attacks |

|4 | |Plagues |

| |121-160 years |Given into enemies hands |

|Leviticus 26:25-26 | |Cut of supply of food |

| | |Poor living conditions |

| | |Food rationed |

| | |Hunger |

| | |Eat flesh of sons & daughters |

| |No Fifth Generation |Destroy high places, altars, sanctuaries |

|5 |And |Pile dead bodies on idols |

| |The End of Society |Ruin cities |

|Leviticus 26:29-39 | |Lay waste sanctuaries |

| | |Not listen to your prayers |

| | |Lay waste the land |

| | |Disperse the citizens among nations |

| | | |

| | |. . .But if they will confess their sins and the sins of their fathers . . .then when their |

| | |uncircumcised hears are humbled and they pay for their sin, I will remember. . . (Leviticus |

| | |26:40) |

* Bob Seger’s lyrics from “The Fire Inside” is not my attempt to cross over to the unsaved crowd as if to show them “see I’m just a normal guy like you.” Why would I use this song? Bob Seger was singing in 60’s and released this song in 15 years ago. These lyrics were used because I felt they fit the emotions and situation. If I was thinking about anybody reading this and having an opinion I was thinking about the easily offended religious crowd who will read these lyrics and think, “Hey, this guy is not one of us. You can tell he hasn’t been properly trained, let’s not read his book.” I am fine with that because if its not Bob Seger’s lyrics it will eventually be something else you will find to excuse yourself from this book. This just makes is easier for you to discredit me and for me to sift the readers. Just realize Paul quotes a pagan Cretan poet from around 500 BC named Epimenides (I do not want to call Mr. Seger a pagan, I just want to quote his lyrics) in his letter to Titus (all done while under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit!). Paul also credits pagan poets for getting something right when he tells the philosophers at the Areopagus in Athens, “As some of your own poets have said, ‘We are his offspring.’” (Acts 17:28). One of the lessons in this book is that because of general revelation (discussed in Romans 1 and 2) the Cretan Epimenides, the Athenian poets and philosophers and the man from Detroit, Bob Seger can all understand truth revealed in natural revelation. If we are going to save our nation from God’s judgment we first have to recapture and establish God’s truth that he has written in nature and on the hearts of men. This my friend can be done with out scripture. Right is right all the time. The world doesn’t need a Bible to tell them what is right and what is wrong. They need a Bible to tell them how to be delivered from the penalty of having been wrong which is through God’s Son Jesus Christ. Judgment comes to nations not because they do not believe in Jesus Christ, but because they suppressed the truth that is given to them through general revelation. If you want to save our nation rekindle our conscience of justice and human decency. If you want to save our souls for eternity lead us to the savior Jesus Christ.

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